Tuesday, March 1, 2011

These Bluestone walls - 1st draft

The challenge for March, writing Rondeau poetry, begins today. My understanding is there are two forms of Rondeau; the French style, which is not bound by a rhyming pattern and is more light and buoyant, and the English style, which is more meditative and serious, using tetrameter or pentameter. I hope to learn and use the English form in this challenge.

The first subject for a Rondeau is a decommissioned prison, formerly known as J Ward, in Ararat. These days it is a toiurist venue where paying customers are guided through the building and the intimate and sensationalised details of the lives of those who once lived beyond the bluestone walls.

Situated on a hill overlooking the town and public gardens its austere dominance is a reminder of what once was.

I really welcome any comments or suggestions for change in this challenge.

Beyond these Bluestone wallsFirst stanza:

Beyond these bluestone walls, they tell
Of men condemned to living hell
And those who walked toward the rope
To end their lives, bereft of hope
Priest's words lost to the tolling bell.

Second stanza:

Unto these men, a fate befell;
The mad, the bad, the great unwell;
That meant not one would e'er elope
Beyond these bluestone walls.

Third stanza

For into each and every cell
The voyeurs came, and paid quite well
To peer and pry and interlope
And place beneath a microscope
Wretches all, who once did dwell
Beyond these bluestone walls.

Well, that's the first draft done. I don't like cliche of the 2nd line of the 2nd stanza and need to think on this - any ideas? I'll come back tomorrow and see what changes I can make.